


honesty is the ghost of you

by spacesuh



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Noren, Poorly Written Making Out, college!noren
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:28:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23454811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacesuh/pseuds/spacesuh
Summary: Renjun knows its time to get rid of everything, but taking a trip down memory lane wont hurt.right?
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Jeno
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	honesty is the ghost of you

renjun wakes up to the sun sneaking in through blackout curtains. he groans and stretches his whole body out and rolls over to finally get out of the bed that he’s been holding captive since the break-up.

he pulls on a pair of sweats and they fit a little loose. he looks down and realizes they are /his/ dark blue pajama sweats. renjun glances over to the other side of the bed. he’s met with a pillow untouched, a blanket still folded at the end of the bed. as if no one has slept on that side in months, and while that is true, it still hurts. it hurts to remember who used to occupy that space.

he keeps them on only because “it’d be too much trouble to take them off and find another pair”, or at least that’s what he tells himself. he trudges around the apartment, slipping and sliding in his socks. doing morning things. he walks towards the kitchen to grab a mug from the cabinet. “today is the day, you can do it” he speaks to the room. no one there to hear, but himself. he opens the cabinet with ease and the first thing he sees is /his/ mug. black and blue mixing with white. he picks it up.

“come on, lets get them, junnie!! they’d be so cute!! mine would say your name and yours would say mine!” his eyes are so bright they look like mahogany wood that was just polished. his smile as bright as the sun. heaven in the form of a dance major. the two boys are entangled on renjuns bed in his apartment. renjun doing school work, and his boyfriend doing, ‘retail therapy because the dance final was rough’ or so he says. the look in the others eyes as he pleads to get matching mugs is hard to ignore. “fine, but i want mine to have my own name, so we don’t argue over whose cup is whose.” with an eye roll, the other boy simply giggles and orders them. renjuns mug is purple and red with “injun” written in black dramatic cursive, and the others is black and a deep blue with the name “jenjen” written in white block letters.

renjun can feel tears brimming at the edge of his eyes, so he softly wipes them away. he can still see the soft pink of the chapstick jeno used. no matter how many times they washed it, it would stay the same, perfect shade of rosy pink. he sets the mug back down and stares at it.

that stupid pink shade. the shade that would linger everywhere and on everything. the shade of pink that stained renjuns cheeks, his lips, his neck. the shade of pink that somehow ended up on renjuns clothes. the shade of pink that stained his pillow that he refuses to get rid of. the shade of pink that jeno would reapply every time he felt his lips get slightly chapped.

he grabs his from right next to where jenos was. he feels the tears again, but he has to stop them because once they start, they won’t stop. he knows that all too well. “you’ll be just fine, jun.” his head shoots up. he looks around. it sounded like - he did it again. he always thought what jeno would say to him if he saw him like this. gathering what little composure he has left, he makes his tea and moves to the living room. he plugs his phone into the speakers and hits shuffle. ironically, their song plays. the song that was playing when renjun first said the three words he needed to hear.

‘what if i dive deep, will you come in after me? would you share your flaws with me? let me know?’ those are the first words that play through the speakers of jeno’s car as they head back to renjun’s apartment. jeno takes one hand off the wheel and reaches over to interlock it with renjun. the younger boy is softly stroking his thumb against the elders knuckles when he softly speaks. “i love you” jenos hand tightens a bit and a million things run through renjun’s head.

‘what if he doesn’t love me back?’ ‘what if it's too soon?’ ‘what if this’ and ‘what if that’

“i love you too, jun.” jeno takes his eyes off the road momentarily to flash a smile to jun. as soon as the boys make it to the apartment, renjun makes his move. he pushes jeno softly onto the couch and locks their lips together. renjun can feel the sparks, but jeno is just kissing a boy.

renjun is kissing jeno with such intensity he feels needy, but at this point maybe he is. at this point, he may know what is going on in jenos mind, or has a feeling at least. they stay like that for what feels like hours, but was only about 45 minutes before renjun pulls away and takes jeno to his room to sleep. they cuddle against each other. small hands resting in larger ones. small boy enveloped into wide boy. “would you?” renjun asks jeno, softly. “would i what, babe?” “would you share your flaws with me?” he watches as his eyes blink slowly. hes tired, or so he assumes. “yeah, of course, renjun. always. we’ve been dating for almost six months.” they fell asleep like that. an unresolved tension in the air, but from what? they didn’t know yet, but one of them wasn’t so secure in the “i love you” that was said between the two.

he comes back; back to the living room, back to the song, back to reality. he can feel the wetness on his face and realizes he must’ve been crying. he makes the small walk down the hall to the bathroom to clean up his face and while doing that he gives himself a small pep talk. ‘it has to be today, jun, it has been months.it’s now or never. it needs to be done and it has to be today’ his eyes shoot down and he sees the purple toothbrush in the holder, the toothbrush that jeno kept here when he spent the night. ‘we were too young, no, we are too young’ he murmurs to himself. ‘we needed to change for ourselves, not for each other.’ he grabs the toothbrush and walks to his bedroom. he grabs the box full of jeno’s things, throws the toothbrush in and grabs one more thing from his closet to add. he reaches up to the shelf above his closet. a faded college tee, the one jeno got their freshman year. he folds it and places it gently in the box.

he grabs the box and makes his way downstairs. to the dumpster for his complex. “renjun?” he hears. ‘must be in my head again’ he thinks. “renjun? ” he places the box inside and locks up the gate to the dumpster. he keeps walking. “huang renjun, look at me...please.” he freezes. it wasn’t in his head. he takes a deep breathe. “please, junnie, im sorry.” he enters the code to get back inside the complex. “i didn’t think you’d find out.” he opens the door. “he didn’t mean anything to me.” he walks in. “i love you.” renjun stops just before completely crossing the threshold and turns around to look at him. “no, jen, you don’t. you didn’t then and you don’t now. what happened, huh? he left you for someone else in the same way you left me? you lied to me, for months. im done. don’t come here again, please.” jeno stared at him, mouth agape, and in shock. “the box in the trash is yours. the gate has the same combo.” he walks in and hears the door close with a loud click behind him. as soon as he is in the sanctuary of his apartment, he lets the tears fall down his cheeks, one by one. although he is crying, he doesn’t feel sad anymore. he feels better now. he knows better now.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!!  
> Leave kudos and a comment, if you want.


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